Simple question: why? As in why did you make it and why do you think it's something we'd ever want or need? Only (talk) 22:04, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Because I don't think people should have to install something to use IRC. Besides, the real question is why not. Computer Fizz (talk) 22:34, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Since when do you have to install something to make IRC work? http://webchat.freenode.net/ doesn't require you to install anything. So the answer to "why not" is because there's no need for it, there's no demand for it, and there's no connection between IRC and Wikipedia as it is so why would we implement it on our wiki? Only (talk) 22:41, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't do any good to ping me on this. I don't understand that kind of coding well enough to feel comfortable changing it. I also don't understand what the purpose of it would be. I've used IRC before without installing anything here, and I favor not installing unneeded code because it just needs maintenance in the future, maintenance that there might be no one around to handle at the time. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:00, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

It would not need maintenance because the code literally could not be more simpler.

On the other hand, everyone was OK with this when I asked like a year ago. Probably should have made sure that was still the case.

All code can potentially need maintenance for a variety of reasons. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:17, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

do you have a link to the discussion where "everyone was ok with this"? Only (talk) 11:08, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I see no consensus to go ahead with this. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:15, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I feel like we had some sort of related discussion about this but I could be misremembering. What I remember is that it was soundly rejected. Of which I agree. -DJSasso (talk) 11:08, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I have a bigger problem with the vast amount of category work that User:Wwikix is doing around here.

In the particular case we're discussing above, there are both categories of "Jewish terrorist" and "Israeli terrorist". Whether I agree or not with the general characterization, I will admit that there are categories of Israeli terrorists, Palestinian terrorists, and other terrorists of various nationalities. There is no category of terrorists based on religion except for "Jewish terrorists", even though we have plenty of Muslim ones (for example) in Wikipedia. Similarly, there are "Jewish criminals" but no "Christian criminals" or "Muslim criminals". So I am quite concerned that there is an agenda here.

More generally, WWikix is adding a depth of categorization here at Simple English Wikipedia that we have consciously rejected in the past. I think the entire body of category work needs to be reviewed and probably reversed.

We're all for allowing people banned and blocked elsewhere to have a fresh start here. But User:Wwikix is topic-banned on nlwiki and indeffed on enwiki for work on categories without consensus. I think we need to put the brakes on this category work and make some decisions as to what should happen here. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:18, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I think these are important issues. Wwikix has certainly violated our general agreement to limit categories, in a wholesale manner and without discussion. I would favour a complete reversal, because either we enforce our will, or our joint agreements are worthless. The changes did not arise out of natural development of articles, but out of his unilateral decisions. Second, it is obnoxious to use categories to pillory any religion (or indeed any group) in a selective manner. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:39, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I've also had concerns with some of Wwikix's category work. In some cases, I have reversed what he did. For example, he wanted to put academics under scientists, and I undid that. I've seen a lot of his categorizing that I thought was good, but I haven't checked all his work.

As for the Jewish aspect, I've had conversations before on various Wikimedia projects about this, and apparently being Jewish is an ethnic group as well as being a religion. Enwiki has their category en:Category:Jews under ethnoreligious groups, people by ethnicity, and people by religion. So we also need to ask, do we want to categorize by ethnic group in various categories? I think in general we categorize by nationality, but I haven't checked the kinds of categories we have for people of ethnic groups. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:02, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I take the point, and as a general rule even agree with it. But in these particular cases it almost uniquely calls out Jews as being terrorists or criminals, and I'm uncomfortable with that. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:44, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

You might be interested in the enwiki policy at WP:BLPCAT. Basically it says a person's religion should not be mentioned unless 1) they self-identify as a certain religion and 2) it is notable, according to RS. Also it says that templates and categories should not be used to suggest that a living person has a poor reputation. At one time I also found a lot of RFCs around the topic of bias categories and branding individuals as bigots via templates; if anyone is really interested, the links are on this talk page. —Neotarf (talk) 17:12, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Note: for the time being, I have removed Wwikix's patroller right so that it will be easier to monitor the categories he creates. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:22, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposal re Wwikix

I propose that Wwikix be banned from creating categories and from categorizing living people by religion or disclosing the religion of living people by religion unless 1) they self-identify as a certain religion and 2) it is notable, according to RS. — JeffG. ツ 16:36, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I think all users are already bound by the part about religion. (At times I've been tempted to suggest completely depopulating the people by religion categories and re-adding only if appropriate sources are present and relevance is indicated.) As for the part about creating categories, I don't know. Although there have been issues with Wwikix's category work, I think most of it has been good, and most issues I've seen weren't related to creating the categories, just to what was put into them. --Auntof6 (talk) 13:41, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Requests for permissions

Are there any active admins or bureaucrats here? I requested Importer permissions a week ago for copying over an English Wikipedia template, but no-one seems to have noticed. Assistance would be appreciated. Thanks, Jc86035 (talk • contribs) 10:34, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I replied on the request page. Sorry we didn't reply sooner. There are so few requests there that sometimes it takes us a while to notice them. A reminder at WP:AN never hurts! --Auntof6 (talk) 21:15, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

On a related note, I am wondering if we shouldn't take that off the list of things on that page that can be requested. It is not something we typically give out and personally I am not sure we ever really should except in special cases. -DJSasso (talk) 11:08, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

@Djsasso: You probably meant we should consider removing importer from WP:RFP since it is highly unlikely to be given out. ««« SOMEGADGETGEEK »»» (talk) 03:48, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

@Some Gadget Geek: The way DJ said it means what you said -- it's one of the English language's strange ways of phrasing things. After all, it wouldn't make sense for DJ to say we shouldn't do something when no one had suggested that we should. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:05, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Getting back to the real topic, I think that the need for importer is sort of needed and that they can be trusted with it. the only real concern with importer is that 1) you could import vandalism in bulk and 2) if you are experienced with MediaWiki you can frame others for your own edits. Laptop Fizz (talk) 23:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

There is a lot more that can be damaged using Importer than that. It is a very dangerous tool. It is probably the most dangerous one an admin has. All other tools we have can just be reverted. Importer can't. And some things that can be broken by using it wrong can't be fixed. Having had to fix problems with bad imports before, its something we don't give out lightly. -DJSasso (talk) 15:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Although we don't have all of the set here yet, this template is part of a set of genealogy templates. Each one shows a different number of generations of ancestors; that is what the number in the name indicates. I wouldn't object to renaming this template and its subpages as long as the number is indicated in the name (to allow for creating other members of the set if we ever need them), redirects from the current names are kept (because pages copied from enwiki may use them), and the new name uses simple words (pedigree is not simple). --Auntof6 (talk) 16:03, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Auntof6. We do have to keep the numbering. The rest of the name I am not as concerned about as redirects can take care of it when articles are imported. -DJSasso (talk) 12:53, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Once the questions submission period has ended on April 20, the Elections Committee will then collate the questions for the candidates to respond to beginning on April 21.

The goal of this process is to fill the three community-selected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. The election results will be used by the Board itself to select its new members.

The full schedule for the Board elections is as follows. All dates are inclusive, that is, from the beginning of the first day (UTC) to the end of the last.

April 7 (00:00 UTC) – April 20 (23:59 UTC) – Board nominations

April 7 – April 20 – Board candidates questions submission period

April 21 – April 30 – Board candidates answer questions

May 1 – May 14 – Board voting period

May 15–19 – Board vote checking

May 20 – Board result announcement goal

In addition to the Board elections, we will also soon be holding elections for the following roles:

Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC)

There are five positions being filled. More information about this election will be available on Meta-Wiki.

Funds Dissemination Committee Ombudsperson (Ombuds)

One position is being filled. More information about this election will be available on Meta-Wiki.

Please note that this year the Board of Trustees elections will be held before the FDC and Ombuds elections. Candidates who are not elected to the Board are explicitly permitted and encouraged to submit themselves as candidates to the FDC or Ombuds positions after the results of the Board elections are announced.

More information on this year's elections can be found on Meta-Wiki. Any questions related to the election can be posted on the election talk page on Meta-Wiki, or sent to the election committee's mailing list, board-electionswikimedia.org.

Anglican Cross

Seeking the reason behind the circle on the Anglican Cross -there must b a reason the Anglican Cross has a circle on it, any thoughts? TY PJ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Patriot Jack (talk • contribs)

Hello. I'm not sure if you are in the right place. Simple talk is a place to discuss anything related to the Simple English Wikipedia. If you have any questions feel free to put them here and a community member will gladly help you. eurodyne (talk) 18:26, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Read-only mode for 20 to 30 minutes on 19 April and 3 May

The Wikimedia Foundation will be testing its secondary data center in Dallas. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to conduct a planned test. This test will show whether they can reliably switch from one data center to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic to the secondary data center on Wednesday, 19 April 2017.
On Wednesday, 3 May 2017, they will switch back to the primary data center.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop during those two switches. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

You will not be able to edit for approximately 20 to 30 minutes on Wednesday, 19 April and Wednesday, 3 May. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Thursday 20 April and Thursday 4 May).

If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.

There will be code freezes for the weeks of 17 April 2017 and 1 May 2017. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.

Wikidata description editing in the Wikipedia Android app

Wikidata description editing is a new experiment being rolled out on the Wikipedia app for Android. While this primarily impacts Wikidata, the changes are also addressing a concern about the mobile versions of Wikipedia, so that mobile users will be able to edit directly the descriptions shown under the title of the page and in the search results.

We began by rolling out this feature several weeks ago to a pilot group of Wikipedias (Russian, Hebrew, and Catalan), and have seen very positive results including numerous quality contributions in the form of new and updated descriptions, and a low rate of vandalism.

We are now ready for the next phase of rolling out this feature, which is to enable it in a few days for all Wikipedias except the top ten by usage within the app (i.e. except English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese, Turkish, and Chinese). We will enable the feature for those languages instead at some point in the future, as we closely monitor user engagement with our expanded set of pilot communities.
As always, if have any concerns, please reach out to us on wiki at the talk page for this project or by email at reading@wikimedia.org. Thanks!

User:Rowde

Because of the one-strike policy, I am blocking Rowde (talk·contribs) indefinitely. Rowde is not here to contribute productively to this project. He is abusing many IP addresses to create articles with massive tables that are outside the scope and need of the project. I am also blocking 79.78.96.0/19 as a range to coincide with the English Wikipedia block of the same range. This is the range that he is operating his IPs from. Only (talk) 13:31, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

New Page previews feature

The Reading web team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been working to enable Page previews, a beta feature known previously as Hovercards, as opt-in behavior for logged-in users and the default behavior for logged-out users across Wikipedia projects. Page previews provide a preview of any linked article, giving readers a quick understanding of a related article without leaving the current page. For this project, we are expecting to collect feedback over the following few weeks and tentatively enable the feature in early May, 2017.

A quick note on the implementation:

For logged-in users who are not currently testing out the beta feature, Page previews will be off by default. Users may turn them on from their user preferences page.

For logged-out users, the feature will be on by default. Users may disable it at any time by selecting the setting cog available in each preview.

For users of the Navigation popups gadget, you will not be able to turn on the Page previews feature while using navigational popups. If you would like to try out the Page preview feature, make sure to first turn Navigation popups off prior to turning Page previews on.

The best place would be on the talk page of the highest-level relevant category. For the terrorist categories, that could be Category:Terrorists by nationality, or even Category:Terrorists if you want to include the ones that aren't categorized by nationality. For the politicians, depending on where you want to draw the line, it could be Category:Dutch people by province. Whichever is done, the discussion should be well publicized on this page. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:38, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Template help needed

Would someone please take a look at Template:American Civil War and see if you can tell why the list items are not wrapping (that is, they're all on separate lines) inside their individual areas? Thanks. I tried to compare it to the enwiki version, which does wrap, but their version uses a Lua module and I have no idea if that makes a difference. If anyone is thinking of fixing this by importing the Lua module, please let's discuss first, because we have little Lua expertise here. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:46, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

@Auntof6: Using the wikimarkup bullet always adds a <CR><LF>. You have to add bullets in manually, as I did here. I'm going to finish the rest now. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:00, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

It's odd that the enwiki version is coded the same way ours was, but it didn't have the problem. I wonder if there's something underlying that's different here: if so, it would be better to fix that so the two versions could be consistent. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:12, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

What I suspect is happening here is that we're depending on our {{Navbox}}, which is a good, old-fashioned wiki markup template. enwiki's version of that template is based on a Lua module, and I suspect that Lua module has functionality that automatically makes the conversion. That said: As long as we're not doing a wholesale move to Lua-based templates the way enwiki is, we're never going to be fully consistent. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:16, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Do we have Lua here, and if so do we have enwiki's modules? If we had both, that would make retail copies of individual templates and families easier. Retail has better markups. :) — JeffG. ツ 00:27, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

We do have Lua here. We even have at least one Lua module. (I don't know if all the modules at this page are Lua.) I don't understand what you mean by "retail". Is that another language? --Auntof6 (talk) 01:13, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Article tutorial

I have written an article tutorial at User:Neotarf/Article tutorial, based on the Medal of Honor list, which IMO is a very good type of first article for someone to try. User:Jeff G. was nice enough to test it by writing an article, and I have added stuff about categories from Auntof6. Please feel free to proof-read it or adapt it in any way you like. —Neotarf (talk) 00:16, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is the ultimate governing authority of the Wikimedia Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization registered in the United States. The Wikimedia Foundation manages many diverse projects such as Wikipedia and Commons.

See en:Wikipedia:NOTCENSORED. We do not censor our articles or pages because it might "hurt" someone's emotions. You should also read en:Talk:Muhammad/FAQ which addresses why it's okay to have these images on the article and also explains how to block them on your computer so you can't see them if they offend you. Only (talk) 15:27, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

we will meet on day of judgement.
may Allah Give you hidayat. Kazher45 (talk) 14:54, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Beta Feature Two Column Edit Conflict View

From May 9, the Two Column Edit Conflict View will be available as a beta feature on all wikis. The Two Column Edit Conflict View is a new interface for the edit conflict resolution page. It highlights differences between the editor's and the conflicting changes to make it easy to copy and paste pieces of the text and resolve the conflict. The feature fulfils a request for a more user-friendly edit conflict resolution from the German Community’s Technical Wishlist. Everyone is invited to test the feature and we hope that it will serve you well!

Editing News #1—2017

When you are finished editing the page, type your edit summary and then choose "Review your changes".

In visual mode, you will see additions, removals, new links, and formatting highlighted. Other changes, such as changing the size of an image, are described in notes on the side.

Click the toggle button to switch between visual and wikitext diffs.

The wikitext diff is the same diff tool that is used in the wikitext editors and in the page history. You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

A new visual diff tool is available in VisualEditor's visual mode. You can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. More features will be added to this later. In the future, this tool may be integrated into other MediaWiki components. [1]

You can now use your web browser's function to switch typing direction in the new wikitext mode. This is particularly helpful for RTL language users like Urdu or Hebrew who have to write JavaScript or CSS. You can use Command+Shift+X or Control+Shift+X to trigger this. [3]

The way to switch between the visual editing mode and the wikitext editing mode is now consistent. There is a drop-down menu that shows the two options. This is now the same in desktop and mobile web editing, and inside things that embed editing, such as Flow. [4]

The Categories item has been moved to the top of the Page options menu (from clicking on the "hamburger" icon) for quicker access. [5] There is also now a "Templates used on this page" feature there. [6]

You can now create <chem> tags (sometimes used as <ce>) for chemical formulas inside the visual editor. [7]

The Special character menu now includes characters for Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics and angle quotation marks (‹› and ⟨⟩) . The team thanks the volunteer developer, Tpt. [9]

A bug caused some section edit conflicts to blank the rest of the page. This has been fixed. The team are sorry for the disruption. [10]

There is a new keyboard shortcut for citations: Control+Shift+K on a PC, or Command+Shift+K on a Mac. It is based on the keyboard shortcut for making links, which is Control+K or Command+K respectively. [11]

Future changes

The team is working on a syntax highlighting tool. It will highlight matching pairs of <ref> tags and other types of wikitext syntax. You will be able to turn it on and off. It will first become available in VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode, maybe late in 2017. [12]

The kind of button used to Show preview, Show changes, and finish an edit will change in all WMF-supported wikitext editors. The new buttons will use OOjs UI. The buttons will be larger, brighter, and easier to read. The labels will remain the same. You can test the new button by editing a page and adding &ooui=1 to the end of the URL, like this: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Sandbox?action=edit&ooui=1 The old appearance will no longer be possible, even with local CSS changes. [13]

If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

Article creation

Hi, I haven't been around here for a while so I kind of lost track of how things work exactly, so I'm not sure if this is the place to ask this. Would a simplified version of this page be acceptable around here, or is it still not notable enough? Reception123/Receptie123 (talk) 08:07, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

RevisionSlider

RevisionSlider will be available as a default feature for all users on all wikis from May 17. The RevisionSlider adds a slider view to the diff page so that you can easily move between revisions. The slider view is collapsed by default, and will load by clicking on it. It can also be turned off entirely in the user preferences. RevisionSlider has been a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia for 6 months and a beta feature on all wikis for 8 months. The feature fulfills a wish from the German Community’s Technical Wishlist. Thanks to everyone who tested RevisionSlider and gave valuable feedback to improve the feature! We hope that RevisionSlider will continue to serve you well in your work.

The Wikimedia movement strategy core team and working groups have completed reviewing the more than 1800 thematic statements we received from the first discussion. They have identified 5 themes that were consistent across all the conversations - each with their own set of sub-themes. These are not the final themes, just an initial working draft of the core concepts.

You are invited to join the online and offline discussions taking place on these 5 themes. This round of discussions will take place between now and June 12th. You can discuss as many as you like; we ask you to participate in the ones that are most (or least) important to you.

Here are the five themes, each has a page on Meta-Wiki with more information about the theme and how to participate in that theme's discussion:

"Only" warnings

I started a conversation with User:Auntof6 on her talk page. The following is copied from there:Start copy
So here's a question for you, Auntof6. I used an "only" warning the other day, and you criticized me for it. The IP had been creating a nonsense page, and had been blocked two days earlier for substantially the same vandalism. I did not think the situation warranted starting over at level one warning and escalating. If you don't think a 4im-level warning should be used in a setting like that, is it ok to start immediately at (regular) 4-level warning? StevenJ81 (talk) 2:41 pm, Today (UTC−4)
Note: If it had been a week later or more, I would have given the IP the benefit of the doubt and assumed the user was someone different on the same dynamic IP address. But this was only two days later, so I did not think the same benefit of doubt was warranted. StevenJ81 (talk) 2:42 pm, Today (UTC−4)

If vandalism is resumed soon enough after a block ends, it's similar to previous vandalism, and it looks like it's going to continue, you could probably just report at WP:VIP without further warnings. What constitutes "soon enough" is not specifically defined, as far as I know. This is probably a conversation we should be having in a more public place instead of on a user talk page. --Auntof6 (talk) 3:01 pm, Today (UTC−4)

End copy
I'd be interested to hear other opinions on this. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:29, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Auntof6. If similar edit patterns continue after a recent block, there's no point in warning the vandal. Although on twinkle it does mention: "Vandalism after recent (within 1 day) release of block", the part mentioning "within 1 day" I see more as a suggestion and not a strict guideline. In this case, this editor was blocked 2 days earlier and would be something I would report to VIP. eurodyne (talk) 02:57, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I maybe should have been more specific. It's an option in the drop down under VIP when reporting users. User page -> TW -> VIP -> check the box with Vandalism after recent (within 1 day) release of block eurodyne (talk) 15:01, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

OK, that's why I don't see it. The skin I use doesn't have the dropdown box. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:42, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Amount of warnings is 100% personal opinion. No one is obligated to give any number of warnings. Fit the number of warnings to the situation. If its an account that came in and wildly vandalized a bunch of pages in a rapid amount of time and did no other good edits. I might not even warn. All the warnings templates do is change the strength of the wording. I typically give 3 but only if its a situation that doesn't warrant less. I never give the 1st level one as I find that one is a waste of time. -DJSasso (talk) 18:01, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't know the specifics of this case, but in general I would be leery of of giving a second warning. My reasoning is as follows: Some (probably a very small amount, though) of what is seen by some editors as vandalism is actually bumbling good-faith editing. And some of what some editors call vandalism is in fact correct editing that some editors don't like (I have had this happen to my edits on the German and English Wikipedias).Kdammers (talk) 03:44, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Funds Dissemination Committee
The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) makes recommendations about how to allocate Wikimedia movement funds to eligible entities. There are five positions being filled. More information about this role can be found at the FDC elections page.

Funds Dissemination Committee Ombudsperson
The Funds Dissemination Committee Ombudsperson receives complaints and feedback about the FDC process, investigates complaints at the request of the Board of Trustees, and summarizes the investigations and feedback for the Board of Trustees on an annual basis. One position is being filled. More information about this role can be found at the FDC Ombudsperson elections page.

We will also be accepting questions to ask the candidates until May 28. You can submit your questions on Meta-Wiki. Once the questions submission period has ended on May 28, the Elections Committee will then collate the questions for the candidates to respond to.

The goal of this process is to fill the five community-selected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Funds Dissemination Committee and the community-selected ombudsperson. The election results will be used by the Board itself to make the appointments.

The full schedule for the FDC elections is as follows. All dates are inclusive, that is, from the beginning of the first day (UTC) to the end of the last.

Please feel free to post a note about the election on your project's village pump. Any questions related to the election can be posted on the talk page on Meta-Wiki, or sent to the election committee's mailing list, board-electionswikimedia.org.

Twinkle weirdness

Is anyone else having issues with Twinkle? Sometimes I don't get the extra tabs at the top of talk pages. Sometimes refreshing the page fixes it, sometimes not. Some other things also aren't appearing consistently, such as the "Restore this version" link when looking at a diff. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:58, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

This has been happening for months. I refresh a few times and if that doesn't work, add warning templates manually. I've noticed on some days it's better than others, but for the most part pretty inconsistent. eurodyne (talk) 03:39, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Someone (who is a coder, which I'm not) needs to see if some of the recent changes affecting users' individual .js pages also end up affecting the scripts that run Twinkle. I don't for a moment know that this is the problem, but the problem description sounds a lot like the problems I've had with my own scripts. See m:User talk:StevenJ81#Tech News: 2017-20. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:30, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject YouTube

Just notifying the community of the creation of WikiProject YouTube on this Wikipedia as per WP:WP. Let me know what you think about the project, as I am new to this Wikipedia because my home Wikipedia is the English Wikipedia. Thanks! Jamesjpk (talk) 07:53, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

It would help if you linked to the project here. (I added a link above.) I see that the project's aim is to "improve Wikipedia's coverage of articles related to YouTube's popular uploaders". Be aware that it's very hard to show notability of YouTubers. No number of view or subscribers shows it. Be sure that any article you create about them shows notability. Without that, the articles could be deleted. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:01, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Is this a valid topic, as opposed to antisemitic mudslinging? It was recently deleted but now back again with references. One is to Russia Today, which I personally don't think is a reliable source, but the other one looks okay. 87.11.124.196 (talk) 12:09, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

It is a valid topic, just not written very well. -DJSasso (talk) 12:12, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Sandbox for IP editing?

An IP user created Wikipedia:Sandbox/IP editor. It might be helpful to have this. I don't know. I think we should either delete it or add it to the bot that resets the main sandbox. What do others think? --Auntof6 (talk) 20:43, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it's needed. IPs are able to edit the regular sandbox so there's no reason to have a subpage for it. eurodyne (talk) 03:58, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

The sandbox is for IPs and anyone else who wants to use it so not needed. -DJSasso (talk) 11:38, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Not needed. But I guess this goes back to the question of people adding such large amounts of junk to the sandbox that a legitimate user actually trying to use the sandbox could crash his machine. So my question is this, in two parts: (a) What are the rules governing when the bot resets the sandbox? and (b) Can we add an item to that rubric that if the page is larger than [pick a size] it is automatically reset, regardless of the rest of the rules? StevenJ81 (talk) 15:26, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

The sandbox page history seems to show that the bot runs at 38 minutes past the hour, resetting the content if there have been any changes since the last reset. That's probably often enough. We wouldn't want vandals trying to make the bot run over and over by repeatedly adding a lot of content. --Auntof6 (talk) 15:46, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

On the main sandbox, hourly is certainly fine; no need for an additional rule. I should have looked first. I figured it might only run every day or two. (self-trout) StevenJ81 (talk) 17:01, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

What do you care for most? What are you concerned with? Take part in the strategy discussion

Hi! I hope I am writing in Simple English. If I'm not, please, make it simpler!

The more involved we are, the more ideas or wishes concerning the future of Wikipedia we have. We want to change some things, but other things we prefer not to be changed at all, and we can explain why for each of those things. At some point, we don’t think only about the recent changes or personal lists of to-dos, but also about, for example, groups of users, the software, institutional partners, money!, etc. When we discuss with other Wikimedians, we want them to have at least similar priorities that we have. Otherwise, we feel we wasted our time and efforts.

We need to find something that could be predictable, clear and certain to everybody. A uniting idea that would be more nearby and close to the every day’s reality than the Vision (every human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge).

But people contribute to Wikimedia in so many ways. The thing that should unite us should also fit various needs of editors and affiliates from many countries. What’s more, we can’t ignore other groups of people who care about or depend on us, like regular donors or “power readers” (people who read our content a lot and often).

That’s why we’re running the movement strategy discussions. Between 2019 and 2034, the main idea that results from these discussions, considered by Wikimedians as the most important one, will influence big and small decisions, e.g. in grant programs, or software development. For example: are we more educational, or more IT-like?

We want to take into account everybody’s voice. Really: each community is important. We don’t want you to be or even feel excluded.

Please, if you are interested in the Wikimedia strategy, follow these steps:

Have a look at this page. There are drafts of 5 potential candidates for the strategic priority. You can comment on the talk pages. Languages other than English are OK.

Tell those Wikipedians who don't know English that we're waiting for their comments as well!

The last day for the discussion is June, 12. Later, we’ll read all your comments, and shortly after that, there’ll be another round of discussions (see the timeline). I will give you more details before that happens.

If you have any questions, ask me. If you ask me here, mention me please.

Friendly disclaimer: this message wasn't written by a bot, a bureaucrat or a person who doesn't care about your project. I’m a Polish Wikipedian, and I hope my words are straightforward enough. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 09:47, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Site issues

There are three articles on se Wikipedia claiming to be the civil rights movement:

The "United States civil rights movement" has the longest editor history. The "African-American Civil Rights Movement" has been vandalized at the top of the page for over one month. Both articles need to be merged together.

While the article titled "civil rights movement" is actually about all social movements for civil rights. There is no source to support the claim in the lead sentence of that article. Mitchumch (talk) 12:30, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Renamed and redirected the last two. The first one I have left alone at the moment as it is technically a different topic. But it could probably be redirected as well. -DJSasso (talk) 18:30, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

@Djsasso: Thanks. The article title needs to moved to "Social movements for civil rights" to distinguish it from the Civil Rights Movement. I'm not aware of any other social movement called the civil rights movement. Mitchumch (talk) 13:49, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you to our patrollers and others who fight vandalism here

I'd like to thank everyone who patrols new pages, reverts vandalism, tags pages for quick deletion or discussed deletion, or reports vandals at WP:VIP. (Did I leave anything out?) It can be hard to keep up with all the bad edits, and you all help us do that. Thanks! --Auntof6 (talk) 06:03, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

I think they should add the user intentions predictions and edit quality predictions to the recent changes filter thing so that (registered) patrollers on Simple EnWiki can fight vandalism on this version of Wikipedia too. -- 2601:381:101:142:E142:7DA5:57E7:A440 (talk) 00:17, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Having trouble with Lake Maurice image

I can't figure out how to add an image to the Lake Maurice page. I tried to add "Lake Maurice 0317.svg" from Commons to the infobox. Is it because it's a .svg file? Any suggestions of what I should do? SpinningBanner (talk) 02:41, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

@Auntof6: Thank you for helping figure it out. I must of not done something right. SpinningBanner (talk) 00:22, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Visual editor has problems with refences...

Hello all,

I recently edited Grenfell Tower fire, and noticed that when you use the visual editor, and insert a statement with a named reference, that the visual edtor may change this reference's name if a ref with such a name already exists. Prolblem is, that in the references section, the reference will show up empty.

Anyone else having trouble with HotCat?

HotCat doesn't seem to be working consistently recently. I've been working from Special:UncategorizedPages. When I click on a page, the usual HotCat links appear sometimes but not other times. Has anyone else noticed any issues? --Auntof6 (talk) 08:11, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Edited to add: Actually, it seems like other gadgets might also be affected. I use the one that adds a UTC clock to the upper right corner of the screen, and that one isn't always there, either. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:13, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

I use the clock one and its there for me. Probably local to you issue. -DJSasso (talk) 11:53, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

I suspected that that could be an issue. However, all the code I've put on my common.js page was copied and pasted: I don't know enough to figure out what needs to be updated. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:19, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm no great expert myself. But early next week I should be in a position to at least have a look at it. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:01, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
I discovered something. I usually use Firefox, but I just tried Internet Explorer and everything's working again. Maybe it was something in recent updates to Firefox. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:59, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I use Firefox as my main browser and have recently had a hard time with Cat-a-lot. I never experienced any specific issues with HotCat; just now I cleared my cookies and everything seems to be working fine. eurodyne (talk) 07:59, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm having trouble with Cat-a-lot, too. The next time I'm back on my main computer, I'll try clearing cookies and see if that helps. Thanks for the suggestion. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:52, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

ResponseHelper port

Some admins here may be familiar with MusikAnimal's awesome script which helps speed up responding to reports at AIV (VIP here) by having a one-click insert of the {{AIV}} response template. I noticed here you use {{VIP}} response templates, so I ported the script over. So far it'll only work at WP:VIP -- There'sNoTime(to explain) 10:01, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Umm.. ya got something showing there..

So, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, I found it on accident. It seems that MediaWiki has all namespaces indexed by default. Which means that currently all the user space on here is searchable by Google. It's not a "good" or "bad" thing, in my view, but at least something you should be aware of, so you can discuss if you'd like it changed. Drewmutt(^ᴥ^)talk 02:53, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Edit toolbar missing

Hi, Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask this,
Basically the edit toolbar isn't showing for me, I've reset all preferences but no luck,
Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 02:48, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

If you mean the toolbar that has the buttons for bolding, italicizing, signing, etc., then I've been having the same problem off and on. There may have been a software update. Sometimes the bar comes back when I refresh the page or preview it. Have you tried that, or anything else? --Auntof6 (talk) 02:53, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

try clearing your monobook.js page or whatever you use as your skin. I was having the same issue and eventually found that that was the solution per discussion on the English Wikipedia. Something about some of the scripts being outdated which was leading to the issue of the Twinkle tools not displaying. Only (talk) 11:00, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi Auntof6, The bar does appear at times however for me it's very sparse - It takes about 3-4 refreshes for it to show,

Hi Only, My vector.css is the old headings etc before it was all updated and I've removed the autoed script from vector.js and still no luck,

I'm not all that knowledgable with software stuff but can't it be reversed until someone can find out what the issue is ?, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 13:06, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

You would have to remove it from your .js file and then clear the cache on your browser and reopen it to insure it was using the now cleared file. -DJSasso (talk) 13:19, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi Djsasso, Ah bingo! - It was the crap in my common.js file wwhich was causing it not to work, Thanks all for your help - much appreciated, –Davey2010Talk 14:23, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

New special page, Lint errors, shows where some cleanup is needed

I just noticed a new special page, Special:LintErrors. It lists various syntax errors in our pages. (I don't know what all of them mean, though.) Some of these are similar to the errors you can find at Check Wikipedia. If you like to do cleanup, check out some of the things listed. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:52, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Join the strategy discussion. How do our communities and content stay relevant in a changing world?

Hi!

I'm a Polish Wikipedian and I'm working for WMF. My task is to ensure that various online communities know about the movement-wide strategy discussion, to make your talk easier and summarize it. Now, I’d like to invite you to Cycle 3 of the discussion.

Between March and May, members of many communities shared their opinions on what they want the Wikimedia movement to build or achieve. (The report written after Cycle 1 is here, and a similar report after Cycle 2 will be available soon.) At the same time, designated people did a research outside of our movement. They:

talked with more than 150 experts and partners from technology, knowledge, education, media, entrepreneurs, and other sectors,

researched potential readers and experts in places where Wikimedia projects are not well known or used,

researched by age group in places where Wikimedia projects are well known and used.

Now, the research conclusions are published, and Cycle 3 has begun. Our task is to discuss known challenges and think how we want to change or align to changes happening around us. Each week, a new challenge will be posted. The discussions will take place until the end of July. The first challenge is: How do our communities and content stay relevant in a changing world?

All of you are invited! If you want to ask a question, ping me please. You may also take a look at our the FAQ (recently changed and updated).

Whilst reviewing a task relating to our recent fix of secure external links (T169896/T162235) I came across T110190. Although a couple of sysops were added to the task, I thought I'd post it here to bring some wider discussion and hopefully move the task forward -- There'sNoTime(to explain) 20:33, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Read through the phab task carefully. There are very difficult technical blocks to this. There are several projects in queue for recoding when the time comes. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:31, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

One of which being the mayhem which will be wikidata, but in my eight years of being here I've learnt that things don't move forwards unless there is community pressure. Either way, the note here was to increase exposure of the task, as it's clearly done now you've had a look :) -- There'sNoTime(to explain) 21:42, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Yeah been watching it, its not something I feel is all that important, especially since there is a big blocker at the moment. And the almost zero chance another simple project gets approved, no matter how much that one guy pushes for a french one. -DJSasso (talk) 22:38, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Hadn't been watching that one, and don't think it's really that important. Have been watching several others related to my work on Incubator and Meta, though, which I think are more important. StevenJ81 (talk) 03:21, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

is this the right place?

why isnt there a (")complex(") wikipedia? is this the right forum to ask this question or is there a wikipedia incubator? isnt here a central discussion for all wikipedias?68.151.25.115 (talk) 21:10, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

This is the right place to ask these questions.

There is a "complex" English Wikipedia; it's just called "English Wikipedia", and you can find it at en:Main page.

Here on Simple English Wikipedia we do not have an incubator like "regular" English Wikipedia, but registered users can work on articles in sandboxes in their own userspace.

There is no central discussion area specifically for Wikipedias, but Meta-Wiki is a central site for all Wikimedia projects, including Commons, the Wikipedias, Wiktionary, and more.

yes, but one more. the incubator i meant is a language incubator such as for new languages. ive forgotten thatwhich page it is. is it the same page as Meta-Wiki?68.151.25.115 (talk) 09:42, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Warnings with quick deletions

Recently I have noticed that a large number of people are simply placing a quick deletion notice on the creator's talk page, and not adding a warning about creating inappropriate changes. I was wondering whether there was a reason for this, or whether it is simply people forgetting to do so? MiloDenn (talk) 09:22, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Good question. It's not necessarily bad, because some quick deletion requests are declined by the admins and you wouldn't want warnings left in those cases. Also, in some cases, the pages aren't really inappropriate, they have some other issue. In the cases where the pages are inappropriate, should a warning be left by the person who requests the qd, or the admin who processes it? --Auntof6 (talk) 09:37, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

A good point, and one which I often do - on tagging a very problematic QD (think, attack page) it's rather easy to move on without warning the editor. I agree with Auntof6 that an admin could warn the user on reviewing the QD, but perhaps this could be made slightly better through changing the wording of the QD user notification templates? Perhaps creating a QD specific {{QD-notice}} for each criteria, so that the G10 user notification template could include a sentence warning about attack pages? That way it's all included in one step, and if the G10 is declined the admin can remove the notice from the user's talk page -- There'sNoTime(to explain) 09:47, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

I can see this working quite well, as the chances are that admins will forget to do so as they already have a lot going on. I don't have the skills to change the templates but if anyone does I would suggest talking to an admin about it. MiloDenn (talk) 10:14, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

This would also require people to either stop using Twinkle etc., or editing these types of programs to use the right notice MiloDenn (talk) 10:16, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Changing the templates and Twinkle is rather straightforward, so wouldn't be a major issue I'll see what some others think of the idea before going down the route of asking which QD-specific templates to create and how they should be worded (just a quick example of what one could look like) -- There'sNoTime(to explain) 10:18, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Brilliant - there will probably need to be quite a bit of discussion about this but in theory that could work very well! MiloDenn (talk) 10:20, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Some interesting discussion. Keep in mind that our warning pages need to be in very simple English. --Peterdownunder (talk) 12:09, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Recently, we had serious vandalism problems. These editors vandalized lesbian-related articles, LGBT articles and other articles. They posted personal information on their user pages (one admin said the information couldn't even be mentioned). I gave several of these editors an "only" warning 'cause the vandalism was related to killing gays and lesbians. It's possible that they may be sock puppets of one another given their editing styles and patterns. That's one of many reasons I wanna become an administrator sometime before August 2018. I wanna help the Simple English fight vandalism and sock puppetry. Most of all, I wanna become a productive editor on the Simple English Wikipedia. Angela Maureen (talk) 00:28, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

I have blocked several of those you are referring to and Rev'deled many of those pages. Since the wording is the exact same thing, I have applied the Duck test to many of those, and not only blocked them as LTA but as Sock's of each other, under the general ideas of Duck. While this is not a direct policy, it is an acceptable common practice. I hope this helps. -- Enfcer (talk) 00:35, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Enfcer FWIW this is an LTA (I'll leave them nameles so as not to satisfy their ego) but WMF is aware and their accounts are mostly globally locked. :) Chrissymad (talk) 00:40, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

All you need to do is post to VIP and someone will take care of it when they can. Only (talk) 00:43, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Chrissymad Yeah, but when a new one pops up, until they get globally locked, I block them for both reasons or have been after the first couple I did as Sock's only. Also globally locked didn't use to, and I think still does not block the IP that created it. So I have always been under the assumption it is best to Block them, and help deter some of the Madness by having an autoblock in place to help stop some. I was also just trying to give some rational to Angela Maureen, since she asked about identifying them as socks. -- Enfcer (talk) 00:48, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Image

Hi, I wanted to add this template to this project however upon previewing it it's a complete mess .... so instead of creating a template can I just screen capture it and have it here as a picture?,
I know screen caps are fine but I wasn't sure if it was fine to use it in an article as a picture instead of a template so figured I'd ask first,
Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 23:11, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

@Davey2010: You would need to upload it to Wikimedia Commons, not here. Simple English Wikipedia doesn't host media files, except for a very few that are specific to this site. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:52, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi Auntof6, Oh no sorry I know it has be uploaded to Commons but I mean instead of using that template here could I just screen capture that image, upload it and then use it an article here instead of an actual template?, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 00:31, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't know why not, but I feel like I'm missing something in your question. Do you have a specific concern about doing that? What is messy about it?--Auntof6 (talk) 01:32, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

When I copied and pasted the above template to a templatespace here, It looked like this and so instead of trying figure out how to fix it I simply thought screencapping the EN template and then uploading it here would be a better idea (So instead of an article having the template it would be a picture instead),

There wasn't really any concerns but I wasn't sure if it was okay to do it that was all :),

Well, I see that we're missing some templates that the routemap template is trying to use. Maybe you just need to bring over those additional templates. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:53, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

To answer the original question, it is not recommended that templates from other wikis be captured as a screenshot and then used for illustrative purposes on this wiki. The original template (and dependents) should be imported. I have done that (and also migrated some of the existing templates to use the Lua module), and it looks fine now. The template is available for general usage at {{Chatham Main Line}}. Give me a ping if more oddities appear. ChenzwTalk 12:25, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately with this project when you create one template you then need to create another and then another and it never seems to end,

Ah thanks Chenzw - I have no idea why that never appeared as I did obviously search first, As for the image I didn't think I could but wanted to check just incase I was wrong, Okie dokie thanks both for your help :), –Davey2010Talk 12:42, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

That is however, what you need to do. That is how we grow. -DJSasso (talk) 12:10, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Future events

To anyone who creates articles about future events: please be sure to go back at the appropriate time and update your articles to reflect that the event has occurred. Such events could include movie and video game releases, elections, and more. If you have trouble remembering to go back to do the update, try to write the article in a way that won't become outdated when the date passes, or just wait until the date passes before creating the article.

One helpful template for this kind of thing is {{Template:After date}}. This lets you specify different text depending on whether a given date has passed. For example, if a movie is going to be released on September 30, 2017, you could code something like this:

The movie {{after date|2017|9|30|was released|will be released}} on September 30, 2017.

Accessible editing buttons

The MediaWiki developers have been slowly improving the accessibility of the user interface. The next step in this transition will change the appearance of some buttons and may break some outdated (non-updated or unmaintained) user scripts and gadgets.

You can see and use the old and new versions now. Most editors will only notice that some buttons are slightly larger and have different colors.

Comparison of old and new styles

Buttons before the change

Buttons after the change

However, this change also affects some user scripts and gadgets. Unfortunately, some of them may not work well in the new system. If you maintain any user scripts or gadgets that are used for editing, please see mw:Contributors/Projects/Accessible editing buttons for information on how to test and fix your scripts. Outdated scripts can be tested and fixed now.

Page Previews (Hovercards) update

Hello,

A quick update on the progress of enabling Page Previews (previously named Hovercards) on this project. Page Previews provide a preview of any linked article, giving readers a quick understanding of a related article without leaving the current page. As mentioned in December we're preparing to remove the feature from Beta and make it the default behavior for logged-out users. We have recently made a large update to the code which fixes most outstanding bugs.

Due to some issues with our instrumentation, we delayed our deployment by a few months. We are finally ready to deploy the feature. Page Previews will be off by default and available in the user preferences page for logged-in users the week of July 24th. The feature will be on by default for current beta users and logged-out users. If you would like to preview the feature, you can enable it as a beta feature. For more information see Page Previews. Questions can be left on the talk page in your preferred language.

This could be a good idea, because the plain ambiguous term would be at the dab page, and because we wouldn't have the problem of incorrect links when articles are copied from enwiki to here. It would take some planning to make the changes in the correct order and to change all the links to the state. --Auntof6 (talk) 09:22, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Did anyone get their tech news today?

I noticed some failures to deliver the tech news today, with an error code of "readonly". One of the failures was to my page, which isn't protected. See Special:Log/massmessage for details. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:13, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Same happened to me. I just went to Meta to read it. J991 18:35, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

I got mine, but I get mine delivered to my Meta talk page, not here. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Sometimes the wiki goes into readonly mode for a couple seconds for various reasons, probably was a case of some sort of issues with wikimedia servers at some point today. -DJSasso (talk) 23:14, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Search template

Another editor and me made a search template on the English Wikipedia. It is called {{Friendly search suggestions}}. I would like to use it here on the Simple Wikipedia. Is that okay? I don't know if it will work. --Barbara (WVS) (talk) 01:24, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

It would likely work here and I can bring it over. But I am not sure if it is a good fit here or not. It is obviously useful, but unlike en we don't typically spam article talk pages with banners. -DJSasso (talk) 23:13, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: Abuse/Edit filter managers

Chrissymad (who was too lazy to write a proposal) brought this up on IRC, and I thought it was quite an interesting proposal. In light of the recent influx of LTAs, (including one or two that require particular attention due to the content of their vandalism) it would be useful for (trusted) non-admins to have access to private abuse filters, and edit them. Obviously, this would require a new user right. The right would only need to include two flags; abusefilter-modify and managechangetags (in order to assign tags to filters), and could either be assigned by crats or administrators. The flag for two-factor authentication, oathauth-enable, would also be useful for security reasons. A relevant section would be created at WP:RFP. I'd like to hear what other people would think about this. :) --George(Talk · Contribs · CentralAuth · Log) 15:23, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Support Obviously. And to expand a little bit, I believe this right is necessary as there has been a significant increase in xwiki vandalism/LTAs that compromise the project, one in particular (I'll leave nameless) has done so much damage to a specific category of BLPs that most of the good faith reverts back to "good" versions are still reverts back to one of his hundreds of IP socks. This would enable experienced and trusted users to deal with the filter portion and LTAs without bogging down admins with constant requests that are often time sensitive. Obviously admins will still need to do the blocking but at the very least the filters can prevent some of the issue and identify targets easily. There's obviously a lot about this that falls under WP:BEANS but I'd be happy to discuss it in greater detail if necessary. Chrissymad (talk) 16:10, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Support One concern I'd have is that people know not to write rules that prevent specific words from being used at all, regardless of context. We want to prevent vandalism, not censor. --Auntof6 (talk) 17:51, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Auntof6 FWIW most filters are for identifying rather than preventing, so I don't think we'd run into that problem. Chrissymad (talk) 19:38, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

The operative word being "most". We'd need the selected people to understand both things. --Auntof6 (talk) 22:25, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Support - While I support this, we need to figure out, is this going to be given like wp:ROLLBACK or wp:Patroller and given after request and review by an Admin or Crat, or are we going to require a community discussion like at wp:RfA. Also is this going to be a right that expires and requires a new discussion to keep them, say yearly. Also who will have the right to give this, Admin or Crat. All this needs to be figured out if we go forward with this request. -- Enfcer (talk) 19:56, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

With the power that is capable in the abuse filter, I personally think that we should require a community discussion, at a minimum, and would support the right be temporary, and given with a maximum term of 1 year term, to be reviewed via a re-conformation discussion yearly. But at minimum an wp:RfA type discussion. -- Enfcer (talk) 19:56, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Support I think it's a good proposal and it could certainly help the project. I also agree with Enfcer that this right should only be be given after a RFA-style community discussion. However I'm not sure I support the point that people with the right should be subject to yearly review - mainly because no other useright (admin, oversighter ect.) has to have the same process. --Crasstun (talk | contributions) 18:25, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Actually, they do, in a way. Admins (which includes crats, since crats have to be admins) have to remain active to keep their rights. Not very active, though. I think we have to make 100 edits a year, and those edits don't have to be administrator work. It's purely an activity requirement -- review of what an admin does can be done at any time. I think it would be reasonable to have the same requirement for people with this new right. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:12, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

I was throwing it out there as a mere suggestion, but there are certain Global rights, where they have to come back Yearly for review, m:Interface_editors being the first one that comes to mind. With that, right, they can edit anyone's .css and .js, and drastically change how the web page acts, and it is my analogy that the same should be applied to this right to non-admins. Since admins will lose their adminship for not maintaining edit / log count, and therefore access to this right, so I feel it should have a similar restriction, but temporary at 1 year intervals is easier then maintaining edit / log counts for these users. -- Enfcer (talk) 02:53, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

As it happens I didn't actually that some rights were subject to annual reviews. Now I know, I think it's entirely reasonable for filter managers to have a similar level of scrutiny so I'll retract my original opposition to it. --Crasstun (talk | contributions) 13:39, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Support - going somewhat against my decision to stay mute on the project, I believe this would be a significant benefit to the Simple English Wikipedia. I entirely agree with the above idea to make it a temporary (1 year) right, if only to ensure that long disused accounts don't hold the right should they get compromised. I support the notion that a community discussion should be had over each application of the right. To bring the English Wikipedia into this (something I know I need to stop doing!), the right is given to non-administrators after a week long discussion and often requires non-admins to prove a working knowledge of the abusefilter extension and/or regex - something which I would urge to be echoed here given the edit filter's ability to cause widespread disruption through a simple mistake. Either way, it's a good step forward -- There'sNoTime(to explain) 11:10, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

While it appears we are moving in the direction that this will be accepted, we need to address the second issue, of who will issue the rights. Is this going to be a Crat Grant or will we allow Admin's to grant this. --Enfcer (talk) 04:02, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

It is my thought and opinion, that if we are going to go through an RfA style discussion, that it should be limited to a Crat giving the right. -- Enfcer (talk) 04:02, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I think the community here is small enough that having this a 'crat given right would make sense, providing we have enough active 'crats? (it'll give them something to do as well!) -- There'sNoTime(to explain) 07:26, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Yeah to give admin like risky powers takes a 'crat in my opinion. It's not like we are over worked. -DJSasso (talk) 11:30, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Support Should be year-limited, should take a 'crat. Only thing I'm not sure about is if it needs a discussion every year, or simply an approbation by a 'crat (or two). StevenJ81 (talk) 15:22, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

We can work on renewal after the closing of this RfC. but for now I know that when we request this to be created, we need to know who is to assign the rights, and the rights to be assigned in the group, and the name of the group, which these 3 have been discussed, and sounds like settled. We also know that we want them as an RfA like discussion to be granted. -- Enfcer (talk) 22:13, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

I think you need to have this decided before you close this RfA to be honest, all these sorts of things need to be figured out before you implement a thing. -DJSasso (talk) 10:40, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Djsasso I don't think what I was trying to say came across right. I was meaning there are 2 parts to this, and the first part has to be set before we can take it to Phabrictor, and I figured it would take a couple of days there, before they got the new user group active here. And while that was pending, we could iron out any renewal issues, and have the right available to be assigned when it first opens up for RfAbuse Filter, and have everything done at the start. -- Enfcer (talk) 02:21, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

And my point was we shouldn't even go to Phabrictor until the details are ironed out. There is no rush we have been without the role a long time. The reason being it is often the details that sink something. People might agree we should have this user right, but when it comes down to figuring out the details there could very well be no consensus for any of the possible implementations of the details. It is likely looking above that won't be the case here, but you should never put the cart before the horse. -DJSasso (talk) 03:32, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Comment While I agree that a framework should be in place for periodic review of the user right, I don't think using (the quantity of) abuse filter edits is a good measure for activity. Abuse filters are specialized in nature, designed to counter long-running patterns of abuse. I would consider it a good thing if filter edits are not frequent, because it means that the filters are doing the job and/or vandals are not effectively "adapting their tactics". Special:Log/abusefilter will give a better overview of filter editing patterns. I suggest using the same standard on Wikipedia:Inactive administrators, for those who take on the task of combating long-term abuse also need to be reasonably aware of prevailing editing patterns on this wiki. ChenzwTalk 05:23, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Yeah I was just spitballing, that makes sense to me. We do need something, how it works is what we need to figure out. -DJSasso (talk) 12:22, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Part of the reason I suggested a yearly review of the right. If they are inactive it will fall off without issue, and if they come back for the right, any concerns about their absence can be addressed then. -- Enfcer (talk) 22:05, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Just re-posting here to hopefully bring this back to life. We need to determine how we are going to determine the length of time or by what criteria the rights will terminate. -- 21:05, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Cultural warnings and advisory notices concerning death.

Hello. I'm bringing this topic to you following a conversation with User:Auntof6. Earlier today, I added a template which I created here in my userspace (based upon this template), which is intended to advise people from Indigenous Australian and Torres Strait Island communities, that the article they're about to read might contain the full names, images, words or voices of people who have died.

This is a common warning used on Australian Television stations, broadcast before shows like Message Stick. Some Indigenous Australian tribes avoid naming the dead, and also looking at pictures of them, reading their words or quotes, or listening to their voices. It's also used in other ways, like before films and shows not aimed at those specific communities.

Traditionally, Wikipedia doesn't use disclaimers, and this is the first time that this issue has come to the foreground. It came to light because of the death of the Indigenous Australian musician Gurrumul.

I think it would be appropriate to have a warning of this nature on the encyclopedia, because after all, we're a multicultural, multilingual, property that anyone can edit - and also view. Bear in mind also, that the English Wikipedia are already using this template.

I believe we should follow suit.

The major drawbacks would be these; it would have to remain on articles for at least a year after the person's death, and it applies to ALL people who die, not just from Aboriginal cultures.

So I throw the floor open and ask this question; "Should this Wikipedia import and use the template from the English Wikipedia in respect of Aboriginal deaths, and those of other cultures where naming of the dead is prohibited?"

You say "English Wikipedia are already using this template," which sounds like it's being used quite a bit and has been generally accepted. However, it is on only one article, and both the template and the article are new at enwiki. I suspect that few people have noticed it yet, so I would take with a grain of salt any statement that it is well established there.

While I respect cultural practices, I don't think this template belongs on Wikipedia. Wikipedia does not put this kind of cultural thing in articles. A similar case involves Muhammad, where an image is included even though that is against Islamic practice, and the phrase "peace be upon him" (or its abbreviation PBUH) is not used.

I also would not support use of a temporary template that needed to be removed after a year. We already have enough cases where the recent death and current event templates are overused and do not get removed in a timely manner. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:36, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Firstly, may I correct you by saying that the article concerning Gurrumul is most certainly not new and has been there for more than 9 years, the first edit (as a stub) being in April 2008. However, I agree that the template itself is new, and that it's not been discussed there or even approved for use. I think I will call off this request for now, and raise the use and appropriateness of the template at English Wikipedia before I proceed any further in this matter. Many thanks for your input once again, it's very valuable! DaneGeld (talk) 20:46, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, you're right that the article is not new. I must have been looking only at the first page of the history. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:34, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't know if I favor the broader idea or not. But I do need to say that temporariness of a template is not a big issue. It's easy enough to code in the template with something like {{#switch:[date]|before one year = {{template}}|after one year = [blank]}}. I could even write a mega-template to do that. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:21, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

That would actually be worse because then people would no longer see it to remove it and would make a mess of the underlying page code. -DJSasso (talk) 16:24, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Not that I like the broader idea, either, but it could be done the way {{update after}} does it: when the time period has passed, the article is added to the maintenance category for articles that need updating. Granted, we probably don't have anyone keeping an eye on that category, but the article would at least be flagged somewhere. --Auntof6 (talk) 16:59, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Share your thoughts on the draft strategy direction

At the beginning of this year, we initiated a broad discussion to form a strategic direction that will unite and inspire people across the entire movement. This direction will be the foundation on which we will build clear plans and set priorities. More than 80 communities and groups have discussed and gave feedback on-wiki, in person, virtually, and through private surveys[strategy 1][strategy 2]. We researched readers and consulted more than 150 experts[strategy 3]. We looked at future trends that will affect our mission, and gathered feedback from partners and donors.

In July, a group of community volunteers and representatives from the strategy team took on a task of synthesizing this feedback into an early version of the strategic direction that the broader movement can review and discuss.

The first draft is ready. Please read, share, and discuss on the talk page. Based on your feedback, the drafting group will refine and finalize this direction through August.

Anyone feel like looking at the soft redirect template?

Unlike enwiki's soft redirect template, ours ({{Soft redirect}}) doesn't work if the target is coded with a colon at the beginning. As a result, we have some soft redirects that don't work right. Does anyone feel like upgrading the template code so that it works when coded with an initial colon? --Auntof6 (talk) 18:14, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

What pages do we have with an initial colon? I mean I will certainly look at updating it, but I can't think of when you would want to use a colon to start as that would be using it incorrectly. -DJSasso (talk) 18:32, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't mean that the page name starts with a colon, just that it's written with a colon when used with the soft redirect template. See this change I made to fix an example that wasn't working because of this. The template appears to always insert a colon, so if the target is coded with a colon, you don't get a clickable link. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:32, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

I think there was a change in the MW code that started causing this problem. In the past it wasn't necessarily a problem to use the colon, and because failing to put a colon in front of a category or language code would result in a categorization or manual iw link on most pages, it wasn't necessarily even bad practice to do so. In any event, I'll have a look at the code, though probably not until tomorrow. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:22, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

In case I wasn't clear, the issue has to do with the value of the parameter passed to the template. The template adds a colon before generating the redirect. If the incoming parameter value has a leading colon, the output is getting two colons. It could be fixed by either adding a colon only if one isn't already in the parameter value, or by not allowing colons in the value. Since we have more control over the former, that's the better solution, and that's how enwiki does it. I understand the logic well enough, but not the syntax of the language. (What language is that, anyway?) --Auntof6 (talk) 21:28, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Fixed. I completely understood. "Double colon" problems started popping up across the Wikimedia world maybe a month or two ago, so I figured something was tweaked in the code of MediaWiki itself to cause that to happen. I don't know why, but it was. So things are now set up so that whether or not the parameter value starts with a colon, what ends up coming out of the template is based on a parameter with one colon, not two (and not zero).

And, again, to clarify for DJSasso, you would start the link with a colon in a case like at the page User:Electric goat. If you don't, then the link [[ja:user:Electric goat]] would have disappeared on the page and turned into an iw link to a page on jawiki over in the left-side menu.

Disclaimer: I didn't actually test whether that would have happened within the {{Soft redirect}} template if I had simply removed the colon from the input parameter. But my point is generally true about in-line iw links that start with a language code rather than a project code, and for that reason many people including me are in the habit of starting such in-line links with a colon. And by modifying the template the way I did, nobody has to go in and edit all the pages that link to the template to make it work right.